Bunker Hill couple celebrate 70 years together, and life filled with historic memories

By Jaimy Jones, jjones@chron.com

Updated 9:35 am, Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Photo: Submitted Photo

Image 1of/4

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 4

Married for 70 years, Dorothy and Ben Schleider live at Belmont Village Senior Living in Hunter's Creek. The two celebrated their seventh decade together April 3 with other community members at the Village.

Married for 70 years, Dorothy and Ben Schleider live at Belmont Village Senior Living in Hunter's Creek. The two celebrated their seventh decade together April 3 with other community members at the Village.

Photo: Submitted Photo

Image 2 of 4

Dorothy and Ben Schleider have been happily married for 70 years.

Dorothy and Ben Schleider have been happily married for 70 years.

Photo: Submitted Photo

Image 3 of 4

Dorothy and Ben Schleider have had fun playing tennis through the years.

Dorothy and Ben Schleider have had fun playing tennis through the years.

Photo: Submitted Photo

Image 4 of 4

Dorothy and Ben Schleider have been happily married for 70 years. The two currently live at Belmont Village Senior Living in HunterÂs Creek. The two celebrated their seventh decade together April 3 with other community members at the Village. less

Dorothy and Ben Schleider have been happily married for 70 years. The two currently live at Belmont Village Senior Living in HunterÂs Creek. The two celebrated their seventh decade together April 3 with ... more

Photo: Submitted Photo

Bunker Hill couple celebrate 70 years together, and life filled with historic memories

1 / 4

Back to Gallery

Dorothy Schleider is a witty and tolerant woman. Those are just two reasons she and Ben Schleider have been happily married for 70 years, said Ben Tuesday while the couple sat together on a small couch in an upstairs parlor at Belmont Village Senior Living in Hunter's Creek. The two celebrated their seventh decade together April 3 with other community members at the Village.

Ben, a former lawyer and World War II veteran, said the first time he met "Dot" it was her wit and beauty that hooked him on the 20-year-old woman his sister introduced him to because she was worried that at 26, he may not ever get married.

"When I met her, it was electric shocks that eventually evolved into marriage," said Ben.

The 96-year-old man says that it was their compatibility from the start, and approaching their lives as teammates that allowed him to pursue a 30-year career in anti-trust litigation and 35 years in the U.S. Army Reserves after he returned from active duty while she cared for their four children. He said he feels like he had two careers: one in the military and one in law. Dorothy, 91, who graduated from University of Texas and was an avid tennis player into her 70s, said they never had any "problems" in their marriage.

Their latest joint venture was moving out of their custom-built home in Bunker Hill after 50 years in the house that Dorothy decorated in a Connecticut Valley farmhouse style, and into Belmont Village in January.

Their new surroundings in the senior living apartment reflect Dorothy's refined taste and Ben's life-long love of history - particularly WWII events. But even without his maps and diaries, his memories of walking into the abandoned room that housed the ovens of Buchenwald, the German concentration camp, and numerous encounters with Gen. George S. Patton are extensive enough to fill a book.

Ben was a part of the famed 6th Armored Division in the US Army, sometimes called the "Super Sixth." The unit was involved with Patton's fearsome Third Army and Ben was an aide to Gen. Robert Grow, a close friend of Patton's.

One meeting he recalled was a dinner he and Grow attended with Patton at an English manor house where his unit was stationed at the time. Patton had just returned from a trip back to the states where he had met with President Harry S Truman. Patton told Grow that the president confided that the war would be over very soon.

A few days later, on Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. deployed the first of two atomic bombs on Japan, one on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki. The weapons killed more than 100,000 instantly and only days after the bombings Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced surrender to the allied forces.

Ben says that only decades later did he draw the connection with the historic atomic bombs and the conversation he overheard.

What he was aware of during the war were the rumors of unspeakable torture the Nazi's were inflicting on the Jews and other political prisoners. His unit witnessed it first-hand when they marched through central Germany and happened upon Buchenwald, the "work" camp northwest of Weimar.

"We were marching and some prisoners came out waving their hands," said Ben. "Those people were so starved and emaciated. They had skin just hanging over a skeleton, they didn't move. The only way you could tell they were alive was if they blinked their eyes, which was slow and labored, not a normal blink. There were a lot of POWs in terrible shape - Russians, Poles, Jews and a lot of political prisoners, Germans too. The inmates were so ecstatic about seeing Americans, there were all sorts of celebrations and the patrol was detained by their exuberance."

His life continued to intersect the historic when he returned to the U.S. after his service and had the distinction of being in the first graduating class in 1949 of University of Houston's Law Center, founded in 1947.

He went on to represent major oil companies but never joined a large firm, instead he worked for himself. He credits the Army with some of the grit it took to weather high-stakes depositions and cases that drug on.

"You just have to stick with it," he said. "It's a matter of loyalty to your client and it requires your best effort, something that's hard to come by."

Dorothy sat mostly silent as Ben revived his war stories, her stillness was interrupted by bursts of laughter at her husbands jokes, like when he said they always talked about everything, "Except for our last son, that was a surprise," he said, giving his wife a sharp glance. But Ben says it was really her quick wit that kept things fun over the years as he turned to her and reminded her how funny her own mother was.